The Mastermind ★★★★☆
Directed by Kelly Reichardt. Starring Josh O’Connor, Alana Haim, Hope Davis, John Magaro, Gaby Hoffmann, Bill Camp. 12A cert, limited release, 110 min
The latest film from a great American minimalist is a different sort of heist film. O’Connor plays a loser in early-1970s Massachusetts who decides to just lift a collection of valuable paintings from the local art gallery. As ever with Reichardt, the action plays out at leisurely pace, nudged gently along by the most internal of performances. Christopher Blauvelt’s dun and damp cinematography is counterpointed by a mordant jazz score from Rob Mazurek. This is a cinema of introversion, concealment and evasion. Nothing is given up easily. That has proved a problem for some viewers. Full review DC
Regretting You ★★☆☆☆
Directed by Josh Boone. Starring Allison Williams, Mckenna Grace, Dave Franco, Mason Thames, Willa Fitzgerald, Scott Eastwood, Clancy Brown. 12A cert, gen release, 116 min
The latest adaptation of a novel from Colleen Hoover casts Thames and Grace as young people trying to get along in the aftermath of a most implausible catastrophe. It is startling how much Regretting You suggests a white-picket-fence drama of the 1950s. Everyone has enough money. Everyone is in blistering good health. Okay, not quite everyone. Thames’s character lives in polite poverty with his ailing “gramps”, but we suspect benevolent capitalism will soon lend a hand. Obviously this all a fantasy, but why would anyone chose to live in such a boring imagined world? Full review DC
RM Block
Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere ★★★☆☆
Directed by Scott Cooper. Starring Jeremy Allen White, Jeremy Strong, Paul Walter Hauser, Stephen Graham, Odessa Young, David Krumholtz. 12A cert, gen release, 119 min
This reverent but dramatically static biopic follows Bruce Springsteen (White) towards a creative and emotional crossroads during the early 1980s. Retreating from the bombastic success of The River, the Boss pauses in New Jersey for late-night jams with a local bar band, the contemplation of repressed childhood issues and the lo-fi bedroom recording of the daringly pared-back folk album Nebraska. Authenticity is an attribute frequently attributed to both the softly spoken Springsteen and to White, the actor channelling him. The star of The Bear is wholly convincing even when the film is emotionally inert. Full review TB
Frankenstein ★★★☆☆
Directed by Guillermo del Toro. Starring Oscar Isaac, Jacob Elordi, Christoph Waltz, Mia Goth, Felix Kammerer, Charles Dance, David Bradley. 15A cert, gen release, 149 min
The director of Pan’s Labyrinth finally gets around to an adaptation of Mary Shelley’s indestructible novel. Del Toro’s obsession with father figures, notably the imposing ancestral patriarch Leopold (Charles Dance) and Oscar Isaac’s mad scientist Victor Frankenstein, misses the mark. Frankenstein is a story of maternal anxiety and, conversely, of the horrors of a world without mothers. The director’s innovations and invented characters, including Christoph Waltz’s munitions millionaire and the transfiguration of Victor’s fiancee, Elizabeth (Mia Goth), into his brother’s bride, feel crudely grafted on. But Elordi’s plaintive take on the Creature just about saves the project. Full review TB
